6 Votes
Please vote for the Quality of this Port / Wrapper, not for the Game or Application!

12

Have you ever dreamt about playing the old, forgotten S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ? We were amazed by GSC's work when they released the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. screenshots in 2002. The old design, and atmosphere was stunning and we couldn't believe our eyes. Later in 2005 things has changed. They redesigned almost all old levels. Some of them became smaller, simpler (still nice, but different), and some levels were removed. After the release in 2007 we played the game a lot, and quickly noticed that some areas are missing. We opened forums, and talked countless nights about those for almost a year. Nowdays we could say, we have a full vision about GSC's old levels, due to the collected materials, videos and forgotten screenshots. We decided to remake those stunning areas, maybe they won't be the same, but we will try everything to make them look really nice, as we always wanted to see them. In early 2009, GSC released a build from 2004, which contained many old materials. We used some of the sdk objects for the level remakes, but adjusted (and bugfixed) them for our liking, also we didn't throw out our own levels. So expect to see our own Darkscape, Dead City, Rostok Factory and some more in Lost Alpha

Also need to say, Lost Alpha addon is not just about levels and levels. We will try to make a somewhat, but not fully restricted alife, and deliver a lot of new, never seen features, among with some old ones, which many people wanted to see for long. If you are interested in, check the Features menu for FAQ, Interview, Features List, and many more. Also do not forget to check the gallery, and the movies. All comments are welcome, also we are glad to see suggestions too, however at this stage those won't be considered.
Thanks for your understanding!

Personal Notes:
Thanks to Stephen Shannon fort finding the post with directions to extract the correct msvcr.DLL from the vcrun2012 package to make this port possible. I extracted the files necessary from the vcredist_x86.exe and placed them in the drive_c/windows/system32. I did not perform any overrides on any of the .dll files placed in the folder.

Version 1.1 of the wrapper is much more comprehensive port for Lost Alpha. I compiled a Wine 1.7.19 engine that utilizes a wined3 patch written specifically for 1.7.19. I added many changes to the user.reg file which significantly improved the performance, I am now able to run this game at native resolution, although I choose to reduce image size for image quality, the game can be run on full dynamic lighting [dx9] with minimum settings on my Macbook 5,2 (sys hrdwr in sidebar) which is actually pretty surprising considering the detail in the maps. The loading time for the game has also been vastly reduced with this engine.

Known Issues:None, I have not come across any issues at all, extensive testing has yet to be performed but it seems that this performs much better than the original Shadow of Chernobyl.

Sometimes the sound will stop, simply pause and then un-pause the game to restart the sounds (ambient, musical and otherwise) Sometimes voices will not continue when trying this method.

Installation:
Click on the link above and download the GSC/Dezowave S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha instal files. This includes four parts and the latest update v1.30013. Extract the install files by double clicking on the first part, after all four parts have completed downloading

Mount the dnklostalpha.dmg and drag the app to your preferred gaming folder

Double click the app to launch Wineskin

Click on Install New Software and navigate to the Lost Alpha install directory you've just finished extracting and choose setup.exe

Follow the Lost Alpha install instructions *** As the game finishes installing it will ask to install directx9 and attempt to install vcrun2012. It is highly suggested that you remove the redistributable folder completely. All the components necessary to play the game are already installed into the wrapper. If you decide to move the folder out it will cause an error at the end but it will not impact the already completed install. Click through the error panes and then click finish on the Lost Alpha installer.

Verify that the pathway of the installed files matches the one Wineskin uses to launch. To do this right click and select Show Package Contents. Navigate to Contents/Resources/drive_c/Program Files/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha/ If this is not what your pathway is, use the browse button and navigate to the the /S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha/bins/XR_3DA.exe and click OK

Close Wineskin and double click the Lost Alpha.app to launch the game!

hmm...that's the same error that Stephen Shannon was getting and the same one I was getting before I extracted the files from the vcrun2012 package. The files should already be in the system32 folder, unless for some reason Wineskin resets the files in the there.

Can you look in your system32 folder and tell me what the size of the msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll are? They should be 455kb and 971kb if I'm not mistaken. System32 is located inside the package contents at Contents/Resources/drive_c/windows/

I fixed the problem: Little bit odd, but here I go. While copying the msvcp.dll's into the /bins folder, finder stopped copying, so I relaunched finder, and all the copies of the .dll's in the /bins folder that were also in the System32 folder seemingly lost all values, and became 0 bytes. Meanwhile, a perfect copy of all those .dlls was created in the System32, (in the state before they became 0 bytes.) for example, xrCore became 0 bytes while xrCore 2.dll was the correct size. So I deleted all the bad ones, changed the name of the good ones, lo and behold. Stalker launches. The zone climaxes with the force of a thousand bubbles, and Strelok becomes one with the wishgranter.

That is quite odd indeed, the bins dll files were never placed in the system32 folder when I ported it originally. Seems weird that they would be created there. As for finder stopping the copy, I've had that happen before. I normally just copy to desktop then drag and drop the required folder.

Then I'm guessing they didn't go in the correct folder....if they were in the Contents/Resources/drive_c/Windows/System32 folder then the game would launch, or the error log would be different than the one you posted.

Then I'm guessing they didn't go in the correct folder....if they were in the Contents/Resources/drive_c/Windows/System32 folder then the game would launch, or the error log would be different than the one you posted.

Perhaps there was an issue with the installation then, because the game runs just fine with those files posted. Did you look at Stephen Shannon's weird issue he had. Perhaps the xr****.dlls are simply containers....if you have those xr****.dlls that are listed in the error log inside your System32 folder and if they have a two after them, rename to the correct name and place them in the bins S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha /bins folder. If you have installed the game correctly the app size should be 16.77GB

Perhaps there was an issue with the installation then, because the game runs just fine with those files posted. Did you look at Stephen Shannon's weird issue he had. Perhaps the xr****.dlls are simply containers....if you have those xr****.dlls that are listed in the error log inside your System32 folder and if they have a two after them, rename to the correct name and place them in the bins S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha /bins folder. If you have installed the game correctly the app size should be 16.77GB

It's possible you may have to re-install.

I re-installed up to 5 times and on the 5th it mysteriously worked. I'd like to let you know how I fixed it but the truth is, I have no idea. And another thing, just as I expected, for some reason every character model in the game appears in T shape hovering around, laying down, sitting, etc. It's just something that has always happened with any stalker i've managed to get running on my mac and I've never figured out why, nor have I found anyone complaining of the same issue. I guess I'll never be able to play Stalker on my mac. Anyway, great work Danko, and thanks.